Emancipation

“Reform and opening” started from the top with the seminal leadership transition from Mao to Deng. Deng Xiaoping heralded China’s boom in late 1978 when he called for experiments with “economic democracy” and “emancipation” from orthodox ideas. But the boom was not simply a top-down, state-orchestrated phenomenon. In fact, the biggest contribution of the state, especially in the first phase of growth, was to get out of the way. Farmers were liberated from collectives, sparking a wildfire of capitalism in the countryside. Urban markets and industry were freed to “grow out of the plan,” making profits on surplus production and creating powerful incentives for rapid growth.

The Birth of Private Workers, The Death of People’s Communes

One Child Policy Stimulated Growth

People Who Fall Behind Will Be Beaten

Deng Understood That the World Had Changed

Zhong Taiyin

Former Head, Xiangyang Commune, Sichuan Province

Zhong Taiyin was born in 1938 in Xiangyang Commune, Sichuan Province, and is the former head of his Xiangyang Commune. On June 18, 1980, the central government ordered Zhong to replace his village's "People's Commune" sign with a new plaque reading "The People's Government of Xiangyang village, Guanghan City." Xiangyang thus became the first commune disbanded as a China began a wave of widespread agricultural reform.

There are a few reasons why reform occurred in Xiangyang with regard to the bureaucracy system. There were three factors as a commune. First, wealth was equally distributed without giving consideration to how much one had worked. The second factor was blind command. For example, the cadres issued confused orders, taking actions that did not suit local circumstances like planting double cropping rice instead of single-crop rice which suited this area. Finally, the people didn't have an incentive to work hard because the equal-income paying system would not calculate how hard you worked. It is also called "Da Guo Fan" (eating from one rice bowl).